Paradise (23 page)

Meredith was still reeling from the heady thrill of hearing his deep voice call her "sweetheart" when his words registered, and she saw the amusement gleaming in his eyes. In a deliberately threatening gesture, he bent down and grabbed a stick from the ground, then he started toward her and Meredith started backing up, laughing helplessly. "Don't you dare!" she giggled, scooting around the hay bales and backing toward the barn. Her shoulders collided with the side of the building and she made a wild sideways lunge, but Matt caught her wrist, jerking her up short and pressing his body against the full length of hers.

Cheeks flushed, eyes sparkling with laughter, she looked up at his grinning face. "Now that you've caught me," she teased, "what are you going to do with me?"

"Now, there's a question," he said in a husky voice. His gaze fixed on her lips, and he bent his head, kissing her with deliberate, lazy sensuality until Meredith was responding, then he deepened the kiss, parting her lips with his own, his tongue probing. And Meredith forgot they were standing in plain sight of the house in broad daylight. She curved her hand around his nape, holding him close, and fed his hunger with her own, welcoming the deliberately suggestive rhythm of his tongue. By the time he finally lifted his head, they were both breathing fast and hard and his aroused body had left an invisible imprint on hers.

Matt drew a long breath and tipped his head back, sensing instinctively that now was an ideal moment to urge her to come to
South America with him. He debated about how to do it and, because he was so damned afraid she'd refuse, he decided to tip the scales in his favor with a form of coercion. "I think the time has come for our talk," he stated as he straightened and looked at her. "I told you when I agreed to get married that I was probably going to have some stipulations. I wasn't certain then what they were going to be. Now I am."

"What are they?"

"I want you to join me in
South America." Having made that pronouncement, Matt waited.

Torn between shock at his stipulation, extreme pleasure at what that stipulation was, and exasperation at the dictatorial tone he'd used, she said, "I'd like to understand something. Are you telling me that the marriage is off if I don't agree to what you're asking?"

"I'd rather you answer my question before I answer yours."

It took several moments before Meredith finally
realized
that after pressuring her by implying he might refuse to marry her, Matt was now trying to see if she'd agree without his use of an actual threat. With an inner smile at the unnecessary and arbitrary way he was going about achieving his goal, Meredith appeared to consider the matter very carefully. "You want me to go off to
South America with you?"

He nodded. "I talked to
Sommers
today. He said the housing and medical facilities are adequate. I need to see them for myself and make sure of it. If they're acceptable, I want you to join me there."

"I don't think it's a very fair offer," she said,
straightfaced
, shoving away from the barn and deliberately repaying him for his methods by making him wait for her answer.

He stiffened a little. "Right now it's the best I can do."

"I don't think you're doing very well," Meredith said, strolling toward the house to hide her smile. "I get a husband, a baby, and a house of my very own, plus the excitement of going off to
South America. You get a wife who will probably cook your shirts, starch your food, and misplace your—"

She yelped in laughing surprise as his hand landed on her backside, and when she spun around she collided with his body, but Matt wasn't smiling. He was looking down at her with an indescribable expression on his face, pulling her tightly against his chest.

In the kitchen, Julie stood at the window and watched Matt kiss Meredith and then reluctantly let go of her. When she walked away, he stood with his hands on his hips, watching her and grinning. "Dad," she said, tossing an awed, beaming grin over her shoulder at her father, "Matt's falling in love!"

"God help him if he is."

She turned in surprise. "Don't you like Meredith?"

"I saw the way she looked at this house the first time she walked into it. She was looking down her nose at it and everything in it."

Julie's face fell, then she shook her head. "She was scared that day. I could tell she was."

"Matt's the one who ought to be scared. If he doesn't make it as big as he plans to, she'll dump him on his ass for some rich bastard and he won't end up with anything, not even visiting rights with my grandchild."

"I don't believe that."

"He hasn't got a chance in a million of being happy with her," Patrick said harshly. "Do you know what it does to a man to be married to a woman he loves, and to want to give her the best of everything—or at least better than what she had before she married him, and then not to be able to do it? Can you imagine how it feels to look in a mirror every day and know you're failing and, because you are, that you're a failure?"

"You're thinking about Mom," Julie said, searching his haggard face. "Mom never thought you were a failure. She told Matt and me both a hundred times how happy you made her."

"Too bad I didn't make her less happy and keep her more alive," he said bitterly, turning to walk away. The faulty logic and signs of depression weren't lost on Julie. Working double shifts this week was wearing him down, she knew. She knew it as surely as she knew that soon, maybe tomorrow, he was going to drink himself into a stupor. "Mom lived five years longer than the doctors said she could," Julie reminded him. "And if Matt wants Meredith to stay with him, he'll find a way to make it happen. He's like Mom. He's a fighter."

Patrick Farrell turned and looked at her, his smile grim. "Was that a pointed reminder to me to fight temptation?"

"No," she said, "it's my way of begging you to stop blaming yourself because you couldn't do more.
Mom fought hard and you and Matt fought right along with her. You two finally paid off the last of her hospital bills this summer. Don't you honestly think it's time to forget?"

Patrick Farrell reached out and tipped her chin up. "Some people feel love in their hearts, Julie. Some of us feel it all the way into our souls. We're the ones who can't forget." He took his hand away and glanced out the window, and his face took on a harsh look. "For Matt's sake, I hope to God he isn't like that. He's got big plans for the future, but it's going to mean sacrifices, and that girl has never made a sacrifice in her life. She won't have the courage to stick by him, and she'll bolt on him the minute the going gets rough."

Meredith stood in the doorway, shocked into immobility by what she'd heard him say. He turned to walk out and they came face-to-face. Patrick had the grace to look slightly embarrassed, but he stood his ground. "You heard that, and I'm sorry, Meredith. It's still the way I feel."

She was hurt and he could see it, but she looked him straight in the eye. With quiet dignity she said, "I hope you'll be just as eager to say you were wrong about me when you realize you are, Mr. Farrell."

She turned and headed up the stairs, leaving Patrick staring after her in stunned silence. Behind him, Julie said smugly, "You sure scared her to death, Dad. I see what you mean about Meredith having no courage."

Patrick frowned at her, but as he headed off to work he stopped and looked up the stairway. Meredith was on her way down with a sweater, but she hesitated on the top step. Without a great deal of hope that she would, he said, "If you prove me wrong, Meredith, you'll make me a very happy man."

It was a tentative offer of a truce, and she accepted it with a nod.

"You're carrying my grandchild," he added. "I'd like to see him grow up with two parents who are still married to each other when he finishes college."

"So would I, Mr. Farrell."

That almost startled a smile from him.

Chapter 11

Sunlight slanted through the windshield, and Meredith watched it gleaming on the gold wedding band that Matt had slid onto her finger the previous day during a simple civil ceremony performed by a local judge and witnessed only by Julie and Patrick. In comparison to the lavish formal church weddings she'd attended, her own had been brief and businesslike; the "honeymoon" that followed it in Matt's bed had been anything but that. With the house to themselves, he had kept her awake until dawn, making love to her again and again—trying to atone, she suspected, for not being able to take her on a proper honeymoon.

Meredith thought about that as she idly rubbed her ring against the sundress she'd borrowed from Julie. In bed, Matt always gave, and he gave, and he gave—yet he seemed not to want or need her to do anything to please him in return. Sometimes when he was making love to her, she longed to give him the same soul-destroying pleasure that he was lavishing on her, but she was hesitant to take the initiative without some form of encouragement from him first. It bothered her that he seemed to give more than he received—but when he shifted on top of her and drove deeply into her melting body, Meredith forgot about it. She forgot the world.

This morning, when she was still half asleep, he had put a breakfast tray on the nightstand and sat down beside her. For as long as she lived, Meredith knew she would remember the boyish glamour of his white smile as he leaned over her and whispered, "Wake up, sleeping beauty, and give this frog a kiss."

She looked at him now, and there was nothing boyish about that square jaw and tough chin, but there were other times—times when he laughed, or when he was sleeping and his dark hair was tousled, that his features were absolutely endearing, rather than rugged. And those eyelashes! The other morning she'd noticed those thick, spiked eyelashes lying against his cheek while he slept, and she'd had an absurd impulse to lean down and tuck him in because he looked like a little boy.

He caught her studying him and teased, "Did I forget to shave this morning?"

That startled a laugh from her because it was in such conflict with the direction of her thoughts. "Actually, I was thinking that you have eyelashes that a girl would kill for."

"You'd better watch it," he warned, shooting her a mock scowl. "I beat up a kid in the sixth grade for saying I had eyelashes like a girl's."

Meredith laughed, but as they neared her house and the confrontation with her father, the lighthearted mood they'd both tried to preserve began to disintegrate. Matt had to leave for
Venezuela in two days, so their time together was quickly running out. And although he'd agreed not to tell her father about her pregnancy yet, he was personally opposed to the idea.

Meredith didn't like it either. It added to her feeling of being a child bride, and she hated that feeling. While she waited to join Matt in
South America, she intended to learn to cook. In the past few days, the idea of being a real wife, with a husband and a place of their own, had taken on an enormous appeal despite the daunting description he'd given her of what that place of their own would probably be like.

"Here we are," Meredith said a few minutes later as they turned into the drive. "Home sweet home."

"If your father loves you as much as you think he does," Matt told her with quiet reassurance, helping her out of the car, "he'll try to make the best of this once he gets over the shock." Meredith hoped he was right, because, if he wasn't, it meant she would have to live at the farm while Matt was gone, and that she didn't want to do—not with Patrick Farrell feeling about her the way he did.

"Here goes," she said, drawing a deep breath as they walked up the steps to the front door. Since she'd called this morning and asked Albert to tell her father she'd be home in the early afternoon, Meredith assumed her father would be waiting.

She was right. The moment she opened the door, he stalked out of the living room, looking like he hadn't slept in a week. "Where in the hell have you been?" he thundered, looking ready to shake her. Unaware of Matt, who was standing a few steps behind her, he raged, "Are you trying to drive me out of my goddamned mind, Meredith?"

"Just be calm for a minute, and I'll explain," Meredith said, lifting her hand in Matt's direction.

He glanced to the left and saw who Meredith had been with. "Son of a bitch!"

"It's not what you're thinking," Meredith cried. "We're married!"

"You're what?"

Matt answered the question in a calm, implacable voice. "Married."

In the space of three seconds Philip Bancroft arrived at the only possible reason that Meredith would marry someone she didn't know. She was pregnant. "Oh.
Christ!"
The ravaged look on his face, the anguished fury in his voice, hurt Meredith more than anything he could have done or said to her. And just when she knew it couldn't get worse, she discovered it was only beginning. Rage had replaced his shock and sorrow. Turning on his heel, Philip ordered them both into his study, then he slammed the door behind them with a crash that shook the walls.

Ignoring Meredith completely, he prowled back and forth across the study like a maddened panther, and every time he looked at Matt, his eyes flashed with murder and hatred. For what seemed like hours, he swore at Matt, he accused him of everything from rape to assault, and he grew more incensed when Matt endured his vicious tirade in an impassive, tight-lipped silence that resembled indifference.